A few weeks ago, I told you that the first seeds had sprouted in my green manure project/experiment. So far, it has been a great success. The garden is covered with a carpet of green, which on closer inspection, is the result of thousand of little plants growing.
On the windowsill, all of my Kale and heirloom Italian paste tomatoes have sprouted too. I planted Poblano, Jalapeño, Serrano, Cayenne, and sweet green pepper in another flat as well as these pumpkins from France that are really cool colored and funky shaped. Nothing in that tray has sprouted yet, but it’s early. The cat hasn’t laid all over the seed trays, yet, either, which is a plus.
I’ve also done some improvements to the garden area. I took down the old wattle compost bin, which was falling apart anyway and really just a buffet for the neighborhood dogs, and built a new bin with boards and added a mesh fence on the inside and two sliding access doors. I put all the old compost in the further bin from the garden, and it was already too hot to touch in the center of the pile by this weekend. To me, this stuff is so cool. Its all well proven ideas and ancient technology, but I’ve never really tried composting and the fact that it does generate extreme amounts of heat and turns plant matter into a black potting soil type of stuff is amazing to me.
You may also have heard that we had chickens. Well..our last “lady” Carmela, after surviving the winter alone in her pen, disappeared after only a week of having free reign of the yard again this spring. A little surprising, she was one of the better flyers and lived way up in a hemlock tree. On the bright side…her coop, a 4 x 6 x 7’ tall structure makes a perfect tool shed for the garden. Yesterday, I nailed some wheels onto the supports on the bottom and did a combination of push, drag, left and shuffle to move it to the back of my garden. All good…except for a small mishap. I had lifted the whole thing up about navel high to slide a log underneath. A
s I went to lower it, the wood I had hold of broke and the coop came slamming down on my left thigh and knee. It hurt like a mutha-f… But in true Huntley fashion, I walked it off and kept working for hours till all my little projects for the day were done. Later it hurt more and when I took my work pants off to take a shower, I discovered a big red and purple bruise and dent in my leg. I had to laugh, as I always seem to hurt myself in the name of outdoor projects. Tracy didn’t think it was that funny.
Now I have a garden shed to keep all my garden tools and supplies in right in the corner of the garden. I’m thinking of painting it and adding some left over cedar shakes I have to the roof for aesthetics. No doubt you’ll soon hear that I broke something falling off the roof or have been blinded by paint.
But honestly, hurts and all…I never feel better than when I spend the day “playing” outside.
